Newt blasts 'carpet-bombing' Romney

By MAGGIE HABERMAN

01/29/2012 10:11 AM EST

Newt Gingrich laced into Mitt Romney for "carpet-bombing" him with "Wall Street money" - and said his vote share combined with Rick Santorum's shows that conservatives are rejecting the resurgent frontrunner.

Gingrich made the comments in an interview with Jake Tapper on ABC News's "This Week."

"If you'll notice, when you get outside the zone where Romney carpet-bombs with Wall Street money, and you look at what's happening in the rest of the country, I'm ahead in all three national polls that were released this week," Gingrich said. "I'm ahead by a big margin, because when you come to positive ideas, I represent real change in Washington, I represent unleashing the spirit of the American people to get us back as a country, rebuilding the country we love. And when we get to a positive idea campaign, I consistently win."

He added, "It's only when he can mass money to focus on carpet-bombing with negative ads that he gains any traction at all."

He also suggested that Romney's vote share shows that conservatives want someone else.

"The fact is, when you combine the Santorum vote and the Gingrich vote, we clearly are -- the conservative combined would clearly beat Romney," said Gingrich, adding later, "This race is going to go on. The conservatives clearly are rejecting Romney. He is nowhere near getting a majority. And the fact is, once you get beyond Florida, these are all proportional representation states, and he's not going to be anywhere near a majority by April."